Friday, July 23, 2010

Chicken French has everything I love in a recipe. It's delicious and easy, frugal, yet fancy, and everyone loves it. Better yet, it has a vague, confusing history and completely preposterous name.

This not-French recipe hails from the Rochester area of New York State, where it's a staple on virtually every Italian-American restaurant menu. It's something of a mystery why this recipe would have exploded in popularity in this one city in particular, but that's exactly what happened.

The origins of the recipe go something like this. Italian cooks in northern Italy have a sautéed veal dish called vitello francese, which uses a wine/lemon/butter pan sauce similar to ones used in France. The recipe comes to New York City with the first wave of Italian-American immigrants, where it becomes known by the locals as "Veal French."

Eventually, the recipe migrates to Rochester's large Italian-American community, where chicken is substituted for the more expensive and harder to find veal. The rest, as they say, is history – delicious, tender, moist, buttery history.

Since I'm from the Rochester, NY area, it's a little surprising I haven’t done this one already. Thankfully, a wonderful dinner at my Aunt Joyce's on a recent trip home caused me to realize I hadn’t yet immortalized this hometown favorite. I really hope you give it a try. Enjoy!

41 comments:

Bravo! Nice job! Just like Whitey would do it. Strangely, a lot of chef's who make this outside of Rochester and a breadcrumb layer afterwards.Now I need to make this. maybe not today because it's a bit muggy out.Thanks for the recipe!Pete

I left the milk out (I couldn't bring myself to make a third trip to the store... always have lemons in the kitchen!) and it turned out fine.. perhaps a bit eggy? Wife told me it's another keeper -thanks, Chef John!

I made this - and everyone loved it! No more falling asleep halfway through a dry chicken breast! I used beef stock - this recipe is quite flexible. I haven't tried a recipe of yours that I haven't loved, yet!

Had to go to a party yesterday for about 30 people. Pounded out some cheap breasts and cut them into bite size pieces BEFORE cooking. Used the wine for the sharper taste. HUGE success - first thing gone (and there was ALOT!).

Tried it yesterday! Fantastico! I had a big bowl of raw garlic salad (just a lot of diced garlic with 1 diced shallot, herbs, oil, vinegar, salt&pepper, pinch a cayenne - even better on the next day!) on the side, it is delicious with it!

I have been eating Chicken French my entire life!! My mother has been making this recipe for over 40 years and it's still my favorite Chicken recipe of all time! I just want to thank you for posting this so everyone else can love this as much as my family and I do that are not from Rochester!

Two things I did not know before watching this video. First, I did not know eggs would get bitter if cooked too hot. Secondly, I thought your camera was on a tripod. Thank you for making us think we really can cook.

Hello there! I just have to say that you're awesome! I'm pregnant at the moment and have been for days now making one of your dishes per day or at least improvising! Yesterday was the chicken piccata, which was delicious, all of the kids and husband loved it. The day before I used the sauce you used for the Miso-Glazed skirt steak, but I didn't have miso, so I went w/o it... :( that's the reason why I wanted to post a comment right now. Just now, for this recipe, you used veggie broth, so I was wondering, since we don't have an option of buying it in a store pre made, can I substitute it with those veggie cubes you use when making a soup per say?

Either way, I think you're amazing, and have given me many many many good ideas, but sometimes I have to improvise due to the fact that we don't have a lot of stuff here that I need for some of the dishes, like miso for example. I'm trying the chicken parmesan casserole tomorrow...hope it turns out just right :) and I'm sending you a big hello all the way from Montenegro! :)

Hi Chef John, I've made a bunch of your recipes and love the blog and videos. I made the Chicken French tonight. I tasted the chicken before I had put it into the sauce to warm-up again and it tasted so delicious and crispy and juicy. But, after I put the chicken back into the sauce, it turned out so soggy!! I followed what you had done, what am I missing here?

Hi Chef John, I've recently started cooking. I've made a bunch of your recipes and love your blog and videos. I made the Chicken French tonight. I tasted some of the chicken, before I put the chicken back into the sauce to warm-up and the chicken tastes so delicious, juicy and crispy. But, after they were mixed in with the sauce, they turned out soggy!! I followed everything you did in the video. Not sure what happened.

I LOVE this stuff! But the other night, I realized I had no veggie stock so I substituted one-half can of an 8-ounce V-8! It came out great, and my guests loved it. Makes it a little 'redder' and not so golden colored.